English 11 AP Literary and Rhetorical Terms Project

1. English 11 APLiterary and Rhetorical Terms Project Mrs. Strothers

2. The project • In September, your teacher gave you a list with almost every literary device ever to appear on the AP English Exams. • You have been quizzed on these terms and will continue to be quizzed on them all year long • Throughout the year, as you read on your own or for other classes, you should find and copy examples of the devices on the Lit/Rhet. terms list. Include a brief description of how the writer used the device and why.

3. Grading • Your teacher will spot-check your work for a quiz grade at various times between January and late April • The final project, to be submitted on April 25 or 26, should be a comprehensive list of quoted and cited examples of all terms on the list. • This project will count for three major grades. It would be unwise and unproductive not to work on it steadily from now until April.

4. Rubric • 9, 8 (A): Excellent. 100 or 95. • 7, 6 (B): Adequate. 90 or 85. • 5, 4 (C): Some Success. 80 or 75. • 3, 2 (D): Little Success. 70 or 65. • 1, 0 (F): Inadequate. 60 or below Clearly incomplete or substandard work may be assigned a grade below 60 based on the percentage of work completed to the AP standard of excellence.

5. Excellent: 9 (100) or 8 (95) The student’s vivid examples clearly meet the definition of each term. The examples are drawn from a broad range of sources, both academic and pop-cultural, and all examples are classroom appropriate. The student’s work is complete, offering at least one example of every term and perhaps several examples of important terms. Although the student may have drawn some examples from rhetoric websites like BYU’s The Forest of Rhetoric, it is clear that he or she drew the great majority of examples from his or her own reading and observation. The student worked independently, as is evident from how clearly different his or her examples are from classmates’.

6. Adequate: 7 (90) or 6 (85) The student’s examples almost always meet the definition of each term. The adequate examples are drawn from a broad range of sources, both academic and pop-cultural, and all examples are classroom appropriate. The student’s work is basically complete, offering at least one example of every term. Although the student may have drawn some examples from rhetoric websites like BYU’s The Forest of Rhetoric, it is clear that he or she drew the majority of examples from his or her own reading and observation. The student worked independently, as is evident from how clearly different his or her examples are from classmates’.

7. Some Success: 5 (80) or 4 (75) The student’s examples are useful and usually meet the definition of each term. All examples are classroom appropriate. The student’s work is mostly complete, with few gaps. The project earning a score of 5 or 4 may cite too narrow a range of sources or over-rely on rhetoric websites like BYU’s The Forest of Rhetoric; it may not offer evidence of the student’s broad personal reading with an eye toward rhetoric. The student worked independently, as is evident from how clearly different his or her examples are from classmates’.

8. Little Success: 3 (70) or 2 (65) The project earning a score of 3 or 2 may have one or more of a variety of weaknesses. The student’s examples may be vague or inaccurate examples of each term. The student’s work may have gaps or may over-rely on too narrow a range of sources or examples. In particular, the student may have substituted an internet search for broad-based analytical reading, or he or she may have drawn most examples from rhetoric websites like BYU’s The Forest of Rhetoric. Despite these flaws, the project shows that the student worked independently, as is evident from how clearly different his or her examples are from classmates’.

9. Inadequate: 1 or 0 (60 or below) The project earning a score of 1 or 0 fails to meet the terms of the assignment in one or more ways. The student’s examples may be inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant. The student’s work may over-rely on too narrow a range of sources. In particular, the student may have substituted an internet search for broad-based analytical reading, or he or she may have drawn most examples from rhetoric websites. Worse yet, the student may fail to cite his or her sources, or the student may have shared examples with classmates—either of these serious errors will cause me not to accept your project.

10. Models of Effective Examples 1. Quote the definition from the Rhet/Lit terms list Ambiguity: the multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage. Ambiguity implies that either meaning could be correct.

11. Models of Effective Examples • Quote and cite a passage of text that employs this device: “Thou still unravished bride of quietness . . .” (Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” line 1)

12. Models of Effective Examples • Explain how and why the writer used the device: Keats uses “still”—a word which simultaneously means “yet” and “quiet”—to underscore the central paradox of his poem, that the bride painted on the urn is one second away from kissing her groom for the first time, yet will wait in silence forever for the kiss that will never come. His ambiguous diction captures this paradox in a single word, a single image.

13. Models of Effective Examples 4. When appropriate, add further examples of the device The title of Hughes’s poem employs ambiguity brilliantly to depict the speaker’s complex identity: he is cross, or angry, with a world that shuns him for being a cross between two races. As he faces the prospect of death—crossing over into the afterlife—he realizes that his identity is his cross to bear. Just as the speaker is one man with many aspects, so is “cross” one word with many meanings. “Cross” by Langston Hughes My old man was a white old man And my old mother’s black. If ever I cursed my white old man, I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I’m sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well. My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I’m going to die, Being neither white nor black?

14. Models of Effective Examples • At the end of your project, append a complete, correctly MLA-formatted Works Cited page. The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University (http://owl.english.purdue.edu) will explain anything you need to know about formatting a formal essay. Giroux 21 Works Cited Hughes, Langston. “Cross.” The Poetry of Langston Hughes. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981. 44. Print. Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Collected Works of John Keats. New York: Macmillan, 1959. 129-30. Print.

15. Guided Practice Are you ready to spot some devices on your own?

16. At the climax of Paradise Lost, the greatest work of Christian literature in English, John Milton has God turn Satan back into a serpent. “. . .he hears / On all sides, from innumerable tongues / A dismal universal hiss, the sound / Of public scorn.” The repeated “S” sounds may be taken as an example of two different major sound effects. Which ones?

17. Both answers are right. Which is better? • Consonance: the repetition of a consonant sound in two or more words in close proximity. (Note: consonance with “S” or “SH” sounds can also be called sibilance.) • Onomatopoeia: a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. (The prevalent “S” sounds imitate the hissing of Satan and his minions.)

18. The following sentence from the first paragraph of Moby-Dick is an excellent example of what rhetorical device? Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

19. Is the device easier to spot if I reformat the text? Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

20. Parallelism: also referred to as parallel construction or parallel structure, this term comes from Greek roots meaning “beside one another.” It refers to the grammatical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. This can involve, but is not limited to, repetition of a grammatical element such as a preposition or a verbal phrase.

21. What rhetorical device does Anne Bradstreet use in each of the first two lines of “Verses upon the Burning of Our House”? In silent night when rest I took, For sorrow near I did not look, When I took rest in silent night, I did not look near for sorrow. ◄ Here’s Bradstreet’s original syntax. ◄ And here is how an American speaking normally in 2010 would express the same idea.

22. Inverted syntax or inversion: Reversing the normal word order of a sentence; e.g., “Whose woods these are, I think I know” (Robert Frost).